Newbie Questions -- Newbie Keeper

Hello, I’m a newbie with questions about running MotW. This will be my first time as a GM for any game, and I have never played MotW before, but it looks like a good game to start with.
Here are my questions:

1) When a hunter creates a weapon, am I correct in assuming that the harm is the total of the business end plus the form? Also, how would you handle it if a hunter wants to use the handle of a weapon or butt of a gun to knock someone out?

2) How would you handle a hunter attempting to bash open a door or destroy an inanimate object?

3) For combat magic, it says pick three with at least one base. Does this mean that they can create something with more than one base? That seems too powerful—like a blast wall?

4) How would you handle a swarm? For instant, if you have three hunters and nine rats that can do 1 point of harm, and they Kick Some Ass, does each hunter take 1 point of harm for a miss, or does he take 1 point of harm for each rat on him? Does he KSA for each rat (which seems like it would take a lot of time) or can we can assume, say, 3 rats on each person?

5) Can a hunter choose not to take an advance if it is the only one left, such as retiring or creating a base?

6) How many rounds are in a minute? For example, in the MotW book, the Mongolian death worm does 1 point every 5 minutes. How does that work?

7) Lastly, does anyone have custom monsters that can be downloaded? Or a Creature Features supplement.

Thank you in advance!

1) Yup, you got it.

2) In general, these sorts of things are handled narratively. If the amount of time it takes the hunter to break down the door is important (e.g. the monster is on the other side of the locked door attacking someone and the hunter is trying to bust in and save the victim), the I'd generally treat that as acting under pressure. The results will dictate what happens next (10+, you break through the door in time to save the victim and confront the monster, 7-9 you get a worse outcome - maybe you save the victim but the monster gets away, and on a miss, well, by the time you get through the door the monster is slain the victim and made a clean getaway.

But apart from a situation where something important hangs in the balance, if a hunter wants to bash down a door or destroy an object, consider that door bashed or that object destroyed and move on.

3) I'll let someone with more familiarity with MotW's magic system tackle this one. But as a fan of the characters, my usual approach is: "sure, why not?"

4) Generally this sort of thing is handled like gangs in Apocalypse World. You aggregate a number of creatures together for the sake of handling things in fewer dice rolls. Groups of enemies can be extremely dangerous because they generally inflict more harm collectively and suffer less (which is where weapons with the "area" tag become super useful).

5) Not really, no. Change is inevitable.

6) PbtA games don't really work that way. "Rounds" aren't really a thing. How long it takes to accomplish something is based purely on the ongoing fictional narrative. So the Mongolian Death Worm is going to kill you "soon" - can you make it to the crusty old hunter-turned-surgeon in town to get it pulled out of your body before it kills you? That sounds like acting under pressure to me. See how this works?

7) Not I, but others may.

As an aside, if you haven't already it's probably worth checking out Apocalypse World (the base game upon which MotW is based). It has tons of insights into how PbtA games are supposed to work.

Thank you!

No worries. Let us know how it goes!